A journalist who has been unemployed for a year, Steve McGookin, is taking to playing music in the New York subways. It’s not quite as bad as it sounds. As a journalist, he’s approaching this as a project to write and blog about, a curiosity to fulfill. Once a journalist….

I’m planning to play on the platform for a while to get a sense of what the city’s buskers face every day and be able to tell their stories a little better. Then, for the price of a Metrocard, I’ll go wherever the music leads me; I’ll talk to the musicians it leads me to and I’ll introduce them to you.

I’ll do the same thing at a different station around the MTA map, at different times of the day, for forty-eight days. . . .

But playing at the stations is just a starting point; I’m doing this, first and foremost, to be doing something creative and be telling stories again, but also to spread the word about some of the remarkable musicians who – in most cases – make riders’ days a little brighter.

Just like newspapers these days, he’ll be passing the hat. Paid content and micropayments are in.

Seriously, I wish him luck and will be reading the blog with interest.